


Too late for beginnings, too late for interference - just in time to see it end

by hala_macaron



Series: When the monsters ruled the world [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, JUST, M/M, Multi, Other, Still the draft, organised better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:00:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28405890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hala_macaron/pseuds/hala_macaron
Summary: A god’s realm may very well be their worst nightmare
Series: When the monsters ruled the world [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080443





	Too late for beginnings, too late for interference - just in time to see it end

The skies had never been silent. Quiet, yes. On rare occasions the skies had been as quiet as the horde of frightened and traumatised church mice in Kaserra, a small village just north of Arcnara. But silence was something altogether foreign.

Usually the stars twinkled as they illuminated the night sky one by one, one endless choir draped in diamonds against dark silk, supporting the moon siblings in their endless exchange of songs brimming with power and gentle lullabies.

Usually the clouds chased each other and played a rather endless game of catch around the sun, letting out whoops of joy and endless squeals to be heard by no one but themselves.

The storms had been the loudest, the worst of all. Or perhaps they had been the best and no one had ever noticed.

Viktor wished he had appreciated all the sounds of the skies back when he had had them. Now the skies were silent, even up here where the gods resided. The stars had stopped twinkling 80 years ago. Viktor smiled. Had anyone been there they might have said it was one of those smiles that showed someone had lost it and was aware of it. Those tiny wavering smiles, painted so carefully upon a face as if it were made to break the moment even the lightest of pressure was applied to the skin. The smiles that had replaced any emotion with endless nothingness.

The moon siblings had been the first to stop singing. Viktor wouldn’t pretend to know why they had enjoyed singing so much. He supposed that, if the stories he had been told as a kid where to be believed, they had done so to guide frightened travellers when they were making their ways through Nuerma’s lands at night. He thought any other possibility to be more likely though.

The sun had followed soon after, and it didn’t take long for the clouds to fall prey to the stony silence as well. Ravindra had raged and spluttered at first, all hot temper, burning words and all consuming screams before giving up and succumbing. He still spoke of course - he had never been known to shut up - mostly to his husband. And every other god who wasn’t Viktor. Rumour had it Ravindra had been badly injured when he had tried to fight.

Viktor had to admit that he admired the storms for their resolve. They had been the last to fall, their sounds dulling with every passing moment they refused to cower, to bow and accept defeat. A brief flash of bright and true amusement caused Viktor to giggle breathlessly. As cruel as it was, knowing how close in character storms and humans were would never cease to amuse him.

The joy vanished as quickly as it had overcome him. His laughter faded and his realm fell silent once again. Well, nearly silent. As silent as it ever got with fires coming to life here and there, wherever there was space for them to do so. As he surveyed the barren land before him the overwhelming urge to hit something, preferably something easily breakable, made itself known. But there was nothing to break. The few stones, which were as red as the dusty earth beneath them, were more akin to boulders than the stones Viktor remembered from his life on Nuerma. They were too heavy to pick up and break. Hitting them was not an option either, for Viktor knew he would sooner break his hands than make the stone yield.

Bones crunched beneath his feet as he took a step forward. Practice was the only thing keeping him from looking down and gazing at the sharp little pieces. The first few times this had happened he had looked down and promptly emptied his stomach. He wasn’t that foolish. Not anymore. He preferred what little food he could consume to stay exactly where he put it. Unfortunately his realm did not quite share his opinion. If it wasn’t this sickening and gut-wrenching he might have found it morbidly amusing. Alas it was not. Far from it, really.

Gods normally had full control over their realms, shaping them and interacting with them. In Viktor’s case, his realm had shaped itself to be the worst nightmare possible. He was sure that the other gods had somehow done something to make it happen. And why wouldn’t they? He deserved it to an extent. But as willing as he was to admit that, he still thought they didn’t have to be so incredibly salty. Picking weak champions had been their fault, not his.

‘This land won’t change, no matter how much you want it to.’The figure next to him was soft spoken as always. He wondered why she bothered. She could have yelled at him, in his eyes it wouldn’t have made a difference. He was stuck here, she was stuck nowhere and everywhere at once.

‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, carefully neutral and betraying no emotion whatsoever.

‘Nothing my arse. If you didn’t want anything you wouldn’t be here, holding yourself like the bloody Queen,’ he spat, face growing warm as he whirled around to look at her.

Her gaze was cool, indifferent. Yet the smallest ghost of a smile showed on her face. Life had never been able to erase warmth completely from her face, not even while talking to him. He assumed she was unable to, unlike her best friend. How Life and Death had become friends was a mystery to him. By all means, shouldn’t she despise Death? He was the opposite of her.

‘I see you still resent me and Ciar.’ A statement, not a question. And she was so infuriatingly calm.

Ciar, god of night, darkness and silence. And, of course, Death. He should have liked Viktor. After all, he had brought Ciar many souls to watch over. Instead the feathered menace had never spoken a word to him. Poor manners indeed, or at least that was what Viktor thought.

‘You trapped me here,’ he whispered, hands shaking with barely contained rage. ‘You did all of this, Njeri. This whole realm…you and Ciar really outdid yourselves. It’s perfect,’ he continued to rant, the bitterness of his words leaving a foul taste in his mouth. ‘A perfect godforsaken…’

‘Nightmare?’ she interrupted him. His head snapped up in surprise at the harshness she managed to convey with a single word.

Her eyes were trained on the dusty red wasteland before them. Shadows danced beneath the cackling flames, mocking the spasms still going through fresh corpses. Skeletons seemed frail in the armour they wore and those that had already fallen apart were scattered everywhere. New bodies appeared almost on a daily basis, joining their fellow fallen to rot and decay for an eternity on end. And when they were done decaying and falling apart and becoming the horrible earth they laid on, the realm happily brought those bodies back for a second time. Again. And again. And again.

It went on like that for days on end. Or at least what Viktor assumed were days. Time was a funny thing. It was a downright bitch to deal with here. The sky always looked the same, the fires never went out, providing more than enough light to see the consequences of his actions plain as day. They were taunting him. He had once told them to shove off, which, miraculously, had resulted in absolutely no changes.

‘This,’ Njeri gestured to the battlefield around them, ‘is a nightmare. And it’s a very real one for the mortals. The others and I may have decided on your fate following your death, Viktor, but we did not design this horror.’ She took a deep shuddering breath and sought out his gaze.

Dark warmth of the universe met dull and faded green. She remembered that those eyes had once been brilliant, vibrant just like emeralds. Now their colour was washed out. A true shame, but Njeri could not afford to dwell on it now. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to.

‘And I did, is that what you want to tell me?’

He started laughing. The realisation of why she was here, why she came here time and time again began to grow and rise uncomfortably in his chest like a particularly nasty mud bubble. He hated it. He wanted it to stop, wanted all of this to stop.

He wanted to stop seeing the bodies every moment he spent awake and in this hellhole. He wanted to escape the stench of rot and decay, the hollow crunching of bones beneath his feet when he tried to outrun the horror. He wanted to fall to his knees and scream for his long lost mother like a child every time shame and fear stretched their hands out and clawed their way into his ribcage.

He barely noticed the tears running down his face, undoubted mixing with the dust and dirt there.

‘Is that what you want to say?!’ he screamed, harshly tugging at his hair.

‘I didn’t do this! I didn’t kill all those people! I didn’t…I…I didn’t…I never killed children.’

His eyes swept over the small bones among the piles of skeletons. His breath caught in his throat and caused his words to sound more and more like forced hiccups. His despair quickly gave way to anger however, and anger spawned rage even more quickly.

‘I was not the first person to start wars, Njeri. If all of you oh so righteous gods want me to play scapegoat, then fine! I will!’

He sneered as he recognised the pity in her eyes. He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t want anything anymore.

‘No, you were not the first person stupid enough to think they had the right to start a war based on hate and nonsense, I’ll give you that. But you took it a few steps too far. You may not have raised your sword and brought it down on all of these people but all of them are here because you were too blind to see past your unfounded hatred and insecurities.’

It was as if she spoke about the weather: completely and utterly factual.

‘I want you to see what you have done and I want you to acknowledge it. This realm won’t change until then.’

He snarled and lashed out like a feral dog, teeth bared and eyes alight with the desire to hurt and underlying fear.

‘Why,’ he mockingly sang, ‘because you decreed it? Because _you_ said so? Because all of you decided I have to suffer?’

Spreading his arms as wide as they would go, he started to scream again, this time almost bordering on hysterical.

‘It’s been 165 years since the barriers were erected and it’s been 133 since my death. You think you can break me? You _can’t_. When will you choose your new champions to undo all of this, huh? We both know you and your precious band of idiots would never move a finger to make things right yourself, always sending poor young mortals to do your bidding.’

He smirked when she flinched. A small triumph but at least now he knew where he had to prod and pry to get a reaction out of her. And oh he would do so.

‘Didn’t end that well, did it? When you sent all of them to end me? Your precious darlings failed, Njeri. And they all paid for the fates you lot bestowed upon them.’

At the end of his speech he was panting, desperately fighting and wishing for what little he had eaten that day to stay down. He remembered the torture inflicted on those champions, and their horrible deaths. His stomach rebelled and the ringing in his ears grew louder. He should have felt satisfaction but he felt sick instead. His guest had turned to go already.

‘The more you refuse to accept who you were and who you are now, the worse all of this will become.’ She sighed.

‘You’re right, I won’t break you. Neither will Ciar, Ravindra, Hala or Hilal. Most of them would want to but they won’t need to. You are doing a good job breaking yourself. I hope you’ll stop.’

She vanished on the spot. The ringing in Viktor’s ears stopped for a moment, giving him a second to breathe before it returned with immeasurable force. The fires around him flared and their tongues seemed to try to lick the sky while the ground groaned and cracked as the realm bowed to its god while still continuing to fight back.

Viktor didn’t care. Perhaps, if he used enough force to tear this hell apart at its seams, nothingness would welcome him after all.


End file.
